ABOUT BASEBALL

Baseball Essential

Baseball is a team sport in which a player on one team (the pitcher) attempts to throw a hard, fist-sized ball within a zone over home plate while a player on the other team (the batter) attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat that can be made out of either wood (professional baseball) or metal alloys (amateur baseball).

Organized leagues

Baseball is played at a number of levels, by amateur and professionals, and by the young and the old. Youth programs use modified versions of adult and professional baseball rules, which may include a smaller field, easier pitching (from a coach, a tee, or a machine), less contact, base running restrictions, limitations on innings a pitcher can throw, liberal balk rules, and run limitations, among others. Since rules vary from location-to-location and among the organizations, coverage of the nuances in those rules is beyond this article.

Major League Baseball (MLB)

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in professional baseball in the world. More specifically, Major League Baseball refers to the entity that operates North American professional baseball's two major leagues, the National League and the American League, by means of a joint organizational structure which has existed between them since 1903. On an organizational level, MLB effectively operates as a single "league", and as such it constitutes one of the major professional sports leagues of North America.

MLB Teams and schedule

At the time of writing the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, has often floated the idea of international expansion and realignment of the major leagues. At the moment, however, the major leagues are each split into three divisions, and structured as listed in the table below.